Tiny worm is initial animal to have genetic code mapped

Published: Friday, December 11, 1998

WASHINGTON (AP) - Scientists for the first time have mapped the entire gene pattern of an animal, a tiny worm that already is providing clues to human problems such as cancer, aging and Alzheimer's disease.

Experts called the achievement an important advance in the ambitious effort to map the human gene structure and to someday use that knowledge to find the causes and cures of human disease.

The worm, a type of nematode called Caenorhabditis elegans, is as common as dirt. A handful of garden soil contains thousands.

But the animal provides a crucial keyhole view of the vast world of genetics, said Robert H. Waterston, leader of a Washington University, St. Louis, team that joined with British scientists to find the worm's genes.

"This worm is really an animal just as we are," said Waterston.

"It has muscles and many different kinds of cells. And it also ages, just as we do. By and large, it uses the same genes that we do."

By studying genes shared by worm and human, researchers will learn at a molecular level what can go wrong and how to fix it. Such microscopic studies are virtually impossible in humans.

Waterston's team and a group at the Sanger Centre in Cambridge, England, worked together for eight years to identify the worm's 20,000 genes. To do this, they had to find and sequence about 97 million DNA base pairs, a task that required labs to work around the clock.

"This is an important leap forward," said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. He said the achievement could "profoundly" affect medical science.

"Most of the major pathways that involve life and death and interaction between cells are pretty much between these worms and humans," he added.

By understanding what happens in the worm cells, researchers also learn what happens in human cells. Of the 5,000 best-known human genes, 75 percent have matches in the worm.